Delhi’s bustling commercial neighbor, home to the Indian headquarters of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Coca Cola and Nestle, is going to have a new name: Gurugram.

Lawmakers in the northern state of Haryana, home to the city of roughly 900,000 people, are expected to formally switch names in a cabinet meeting planned later this month, Umesh Aggarwal, who represents Gurgaon in the Haryana legislative assembly, said.

The move to change the name of the city, which morphed from a small village into a commercial hub, has its origins in the Mahabharata, one of India’s oldest epics.

The Mahabharata details the power struggle between two groups of cousins, the Pandavas and Kauravas. Together, the five Pandava and 100 Kaurava princes are believed to have been India’s mightiest warriors.

Many Indians believe the cousins learned the art of warfare in modern day Gurgaon, where their archery guru Dronacharya ran an ashram.

Gurugram loosely translates to “the village of the guru.”

Renaming the city in honor of the guru will “bring back the rich heritage of our land,” Mr. Aggarwal said. Besides, he said, Gurgaon’s native residents are clamoring for it.

“The more Gurgaon started becoming a millennium city, a cyber city, the more distant we grew from our roots,” he said.

Gurgaon has certainly been transformed. Ten years ago it was known as a far-off place miles from the Indian capital. Today, it’s home to dozens of malls and towering corporate offices.

But it’s unclear who, if anyone, campaigned for a change in name. Mr. Aggarwal, who belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharataya Janata Party, wouldn’t elaborate, saying only, “we know the true pulse of our people.” The BJP rules the state of Haryana, and is deep rooted in Hindu nationalism.

Gurgaon isn’t the only city to be renamed in recent years. In 2014, India’s southern state of Karnataka said it was changing the names of 11 cities, including that of its capital Bangalore — now Bangaluru.

In most cases, India’s political parties argued they were replacing British colonial names.

The eastern state of Orissa was reborn as Odisha in 2011; Poona became Pune in 2008; Pondicherry changed to Puducherry in 2006; Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001; Madras to Chennai in 1996; and Bombay to Mumbai in 1995.